There are many things we love about Jennifer Lawrence. From her willingness to dismiss unrealistic beauty ideals and falling with a smile multiple times on the red carpet to being open about her battle with anxiety and self-doubt.
But it’s her dedication to closing the gender pay gap that makes our hearts beat faster.
The actress is currently going from country to country to promote her new film. A seriously scary-looking psychological horror, Mother! (directed by Darren Aronofsky) follows the life of a young woman (played by Lawrence) whose calm life with her husband (played by Javier Bardem) suddenly changes when a mysterious couple enters their lives.
At the UK premiere on Wednesday (6 September) the actress graced the red carpet in a stunning silver Atelier Versace gown and discussed the current gender pay gap in Hollywood.
After being asked about the current position of the gender pay gap in the film industry, the actress said there was still “a lot of unfairness”.
“We are making changes, the gap is very slowly closing. But there’s still work to be done,” she told the BBC.
When asked if she had checked to see what co-star Javier Bardem was being paid she admitted that she “didn’t look at what Javier was getting”
“I just knew what I deserved and I fought for that,” she replied.
When prompted as to what she would’ve done had she discovered he was being paid more, she said: “There would’ve been a phone call”.
We must admit this has surprised us, but we have every faith that JL would’ve made that call – especially since she suffered quite a lot during the filming.
In a recent interview with Vogue she spoke about how she kept herself sane during takes.
Revealing that she was hyperventilating so hard during a particularly intense moment of filming that she dislocated a rib, Lawrence said the film crew assembled a refuge tent for her on set to help her escape from the “darkness” of the movie.
“It was a tent that had pictures of the Kardashians and Keeping Up with the Kardashians playing on a loop – and gumballs,” Lawrence said. “My happy place.”
Judging by the trailer, Mother! looks similar in tone to Aronofsky’s 2010 thriller Black Swan, featuring unsettling imagery and a menacing score from Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson.
All in all, it makes for an intriguing and awesome-sounding horror film – but there’s one thing we couldn’t help noticing about the new release that doesn’t sit well with us. As much as we also love Bardem, the movie falls into that all too familiar trap of the predictable on-screen age gap.
You know the one, where the leading lady is half the age of the leading man. And the proof is in the pudding: 48-year-old Bardem stars opposite 27-year-old Lawrence.
In 2015, US site GraphJoy released a report that found some leading men are up to 15 years older than their female love interests or co-stars. This age gap becomes more dramatic as the actors age, meaning that men in their fifties and sixties are often paired with women who are in their twenties and thirties.
Since turning 35, for example, Denzel Washington has been approximately 15.33 years older than his female co-stars, while Tom Cruise has been 12.55 years older than the women he's paired with on-screen.
In this instance, Bardem is nearly twice the age of Lawrence (yes, we’ve done the math).
However, it’s worth remembering that Lawrence has frequently been paired in her films with older male actors, including Christian Bale and Bradley Cooper, and reviews have always been favourable.
We’ll just have to hope that the age gap bears relevance to the plot in some way, shape or form.
Images: Rex Features and Getty
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